Art and Illustration by Tony Pickering

Beautiful day.

It is a glorious morning. The sun casts it's haze over the sky and the hedgerows are verdant. I head off to work safe in the knowledge that the overgrown garden has been tamed, that the burgeoning jungle has been cut back and the summer evenings are mine once again (Although the cat, who had been stalking who knows what in the long grass is less impressed - tuna may be required).

On the train the sun flickers through windows and tree tops to animate faces preoccupied with the early morning. Cloudless, the sky is an ocean of possibility. I can taste the perfume of holiday, and the world around me takes on the veneer of patience and ease, a landscape breathing in, waiting to exhale and send me to who knows what?

Only a random ulcer on my lip frustrates, adding an acrid taste of tin to the day, but I will open my mouth wider to speak, elocute with more precision and ignore the swelling that seems intent on giving my lip a head start on adventure.

I feel strangely listless and calm, as if the knowledge of what is to come has given me a moment of zen in my everyday life; a moment of acceptance of the rhythm of the day. I am aware that this is a moment of recharge, that there is a painting that is close to its finish waiting for me, but for this moment I can take a little more time, let the sun set a few nights as I ready myself to go back. My electricity of panic has calmed for a while and I should look to the time off to make me stronger and more able to grapple with my practical needs and personal ambition.

I must embrace my inner sloth for the time, until the moment when I look to the canvas and my annoyance at the line, or the sparkle provokes more than an eyebrow raise, but tingles to my hand and spurs my feet. The time is near, I feel the clench in my forehead, the meeting of continents that forms my momentary monobrow; for now though I will resist and rest.